In 2012, Portage College was the only Canadian college to be honoured with an Innovation of the Year award by the League for Innovation in the Community College—an international organization dedicated to improving and focusing the community college movement. Last week, Portage took part in its first web conference ever, as a featured presenter in the Virtual Innovator Spotlight, sharing some of their successes with the global college community.
The Innovation of the Year award, the honour that first shone the League of Innovation’s spotlight on Portage College, was given to Portage in recognition of the Community and Industry Training Initiatives (CiTi) department’s Heavy Equipment mobile training unit—a sight many Lac La Bicher’s have seen around town—a 53 foot Mack truck and trailer, beautifully airbrushed by a local duo of brothers, with summer and winter scenes featuring John Deere heavy equipment at work. Inside, the heated/air-conditioned trailer houses 12 John Deere simulators where students in the Heavy Equipment Operator program will spend 40 mandatory hours, working on the skills they will use on real-life equipment later in the program.
On Wednesday, a number of Portage’s elite, including Trent Keough, the college president, and Stu Leitch, director of CiTi, were on hand to watch as Felicity Bergman, PR and marketing manager with CiTi delivered a 15-minute presentation about Portage’s mobile training unit to participants all over the world via the internet.
“Hello from Lac La Biche, Alberta, Canada,” Bergman said as she introduced herself and some of the key players involved in the college and the creation of the mobile training lab. “I’d like to say what a huge honour this is on behalf of Portage College.”
Bergman then went on to tell a little about Portage College’s history and mandate—a community college serving northeastern Alberta for 40 years, focused on customized, workforce training designed with industry in mind, to meet trade standards.
She then discussed the success of their Heavy Equipment mobile training unit—most likely the innovation those listening had gathered to hear about.
“We re-structured a Mack truck and 53-foot trailer with heating and air-conditioning, and outfitted it with twelve 40-inch screen John Deere simulators,” said Bergman of the crawler-dozer, excavator and grader simulators available to students in the climate-controlled mobile classroom.
“The Heavy Equipment Operator program is offered in three 16-week courses over the year in March, June and September. There are 14 students in each program and they have to complete a minimum of 40 hours of real time and simulated training.”
Bergman explained that Portage is constantly updating the John Deere simulations, and that the plan is to retrofit a second mobile training unit in the near future.
After the webinar, Keough spoke about the honour of this kind of recognition for Portage, and what it means about the quality of their programming.
In 2012, Portage College was the only Canadian college to be honoured with an Innovation of the Year award by the League for Innovation in the Community College—an international organization dedicated to improving and focusing the community college movement. Last week, Portage took part in its first web conference ever, as a featured presenter in the Virtual Innovator Spotlight, sharing some of their successes with the global college community.
The Innovation of the Year award, the honour that first shone the League of Innovation’s spotlight on Portage College, was given to Portage in recognition of the Community and Industry Training Initiatives (CiTi) department’s Heavy Equipment mobile training unit—a sight many Lac La Bicher’s have seen around town—a 53 foot Mack truck and trailer, beautifully airbrushed by a local duo of brothers, with summer and winter scenes featuring John Deere heavy equipment at work. Inside, the heated/air-conditioned trailer houses 12 John Deere simulators where students in the Heavy Equipment Operator program will spend 40 mandatory hours, working on the skills they will use on real-life equipment later in the program.
On Wednesday, a number of Portage’s elite, including Trent Keough, the college president, and Stu Leitch, director of CiTi, were on hand to watch as Felicity Bergman, PR and marketing manager with CiTi delivered a 15-minute presentation about Portage’s mobile training unit to participants all over the world via the internet.
“Hello from Lac La Biche, Alberta, Canada,” Bergman said as she introduced herself and some of the key players involved in the college and the creation of the mobile training lab. “I’d like to say what a huge honour this is on behalf of Portage College.”
Bergman then went on to tell a little about Portage College’s history and mandate—a community college
